#256 – Superfluous Ingredient Descriptors

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It is just plain wrong to categorise the bogan as a straightforward, simple creature. There is nothing simple about naming a child “Mhadeziyn”, attempting to perch atop a revolving system of four different interest-free finance facilities, and clutching seventeen different mutually exclusive conspiracy theories about foreigners, allergies, and corporate fat cats.

That’s right, the modern bogan is a seven-sided Rubik’s cube of mystery. Gone are the days where it would happily lunch upon a humble beef burger, a packet of salt and vinegar chips, and a can of Sunkist. This caused much hand-wringing in snackfood and fast food boardrooms around the nation. “Had the bogan become less ravenous?” one asked. No, the bogan had not become less ravenous. “Had the bogan become more tasteful?” another well-intentioned staffer enquired. No, the bogan had not become more tasteful.

A Contiki Tour in three 200 gram boxes.

The boardroom clocks ticked loudly, and a few board members shuffled their papers to distract from the fact that the meeting had ground to a complete halt. Others in the room awkwardly looked out the window, wishing for an urgent reason to be elsewhere. Out the window, down in the car park, a bogan was doing doughnuts in a fluorescent ute. Attached to the ute was a trailer, on the trailer was a Jet-Ski, and on the Jet-Ski was the bogan’s friend, riding with no hands. Seconds later, the Jet-Ski rodeo bogan was thrown off the Jet-Ski, landing in a puddle of its own elbow cartilage. Clearing his throat, a board member addressed the room. “The bogan has become much more deluded”. Yes.

Six weeks later, the snackfood company re-released its salt and vinegar chips. As “Rock Salt and Balsamic Vinegar”. Salt from exotic rocks. Vinegar from exotic… balsams. The bogan didn’t mind that the price was 50% higher. After all… rock salt! Sales soared. The constantly mutating vagaries of the bogan mind had once again been skewered by nonsensical branding. Soon, no bogan wanted a beef burger unless it was an Angus Beef Burger. And “blood orange” flavoured soft drink was seen as both more maxtreme and more prestigious than stupid old plain orange. It was thrillingly irrelevant whether there was any discernable difference in ingredients or taste. This is because the bogan wants to remain deeply within the comfort zone of its palate, whilst still projecting the illusion of fashion and progress.

The bogan craves these superfluous ingredient descriptors, and consuming something pointlessly, functionlessly overwrought adds additional layers of meaning to its existence. An Ed Hardy t-shirt for the mouth. If Arnott’s releases a gourmet version of Shapes called “Cracked pepper, Mediterranean feta, French onion, crispy chicken, flame grilled steak, roasted garlic and peppercorn” (all of these terms have appeared in Shapes names in recent years), the bogan’s biscuit-purchasing fervour could only be heightened further if the product was also dubbed “limited edition”.

Which brings me to Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like… an even more shallow knock off because its composed by a bunch of aid workers, who despite being the biggest bunch of self-important wankers god ever shovelled guts into (and therefor a rich vain of internet mockery) doesn’t even go for the jugular or take the piss.

I went overseas for a year and a half and stopped looking at the TBL website but now I’ve come back to the TBL website and am totally stumped. You guys have come full circle. Everything you previously tried to say about ‘bogans’ you’re now saying about the Average Australian (if there is such a thing) and/or the Australian consumer.

Oh, I don’t know. “A puddle of its own elbow cartilage” is still quite a beautiful image.

However – yes. TBL has so comprehensively defined the bogan that suddenly, we are all, in our own ways, a little bit bogan. To paraphrase Syndrome: now that everyone is a bogan, no one is. Or wants to be.

I particularly liked the reference to the rodeo bogan landing ‘in a puddle of its own elbow cartilage.’ Perhaps they, like most of us, are so bored with an uninspiring traditional Australian diet (what is our national dish anyway?), lacking in culinary imagination, that they feel a need to identify with the exotic. Maybe they are just trying to keep up with mainstream society’s moving away from a 1950’s typical meat and three vegetables diet. Unfortunately I don’t hold out much hope in their abandoning the practice of consolidating the entire meal to resemble a tomato sauce quagmire.

I especially like the milk company that advertises “No Permeate” Milk has been separated into butterfat(cream),skim milk ,and non fat milk solids for over thirty years and after pasturising recombined in standardised ratios to give a milk consistant in texture and flavour the year round and from district to district. The differences caused by breed of cow , and flavour of feed are ironed out.
So it is just a beat up to try and diferentiate its brand of moo juice. .Bet the bogan would not like runny milk one week ,super creamy the next or milk flavoured by clover. Maybe the adult bogan is like some bogan kids who think milk comes from factories not from cows.?
Bhahahahahah. Be more relavant if they said does not contain Melamine ( sorry China)

Full cream or else you’re a f#cken pussy. You don’t even have to buy Dairy Farmers, as they are owned by the Japs.

The Japs can get f#cked. They are now on a bogan money printing thing. So much for their ingenuity and honour. Well, they are a significantly honourable, seeing as they want to take the pain rather than just plugging things up with immigrants and kicking the can down the road. So they are still less bogan than what we are.

I’ve noticed this with the foodie thing. Almost every dish has garlic in it. All these foodies think they’re king shit when it’s just garlic that is what is primarily differentiating the old meat and veg from all these fancy dishes. How bogan is the world where all you’ve got to do is sit down at a restaurant and that somehow nullifies your boganness?

Most foodies are wannabe libtards, but still vote Liberal and have investment properties.

No dude, I stick to my sport and some series on Foxtel. Justified is my current favourite. Just the ad for The block makes me angry, no way I could sit through hours of those bogans crying and whining, or is that biggest loser, or the voice, it’s all the same really.

Your NRL guys are f#cked, the police is going to get them for being ‘roided up metheads.

Saw this quote about Lance.
“I think it is terrible and disgusting how everyone has treated Lance, especially after what he has achieved in winning 7 Tour De France’s whilst on drugs. When I was on drugs I couldn’t even find my bike”

Instead of taxing junk food, we should subsidise it for bogans, so they die quicker.

We just need to do a bogan census, 10-20 questions should weed out the bogans from the non bogans. Then just send the bogans kfc vouchers. Then the rest of us could buy shares in kfc and make a killing. Or pepsico which I believe is the parent company.

You know, Martin, I once went to a Combichrist gig here in Sydney where there was this guy wearing a plastic S.W.A.T hat, obviously acquired from a show bag. He’d obviously stumbled across the gig entirely by accident or chanced across a YouTube clip of “This Shit Will Fuck You Up” whilst searching cool party drugs but the hat left the impression he had no clue what he was there to see or why, he just knew he had to keep pretending so the shame of his reality wasn’t on display. You are that guy and his plastic S.W.A.T hat is your boganism.

Juliar hasn’t been much more left wing than Thatcher. Everything is almost exactly the same as the Howard years. I think everyone hates her because she’s got a pointy face and a big nose and because she says economee.

Aside from the small party I support I want Penny Wong as PM, so we can laugh about our PM being a leso. In fact I reckon that’s Labor’s best bet. She speaks very well.

Speaking of Bogans…Yesterday, I received a profanity laced email from an editor at theantibogan. To put this email in context I’ll provide some back ground details.

I had posted on theantibogan that I thought it inappropriate to contact the employers of those who had made racist remarks on line. I had also pointed out that in many cases, theantibogan had published misleading accusations against their ‘victims’. I also wrote that their approach was vexingly immature. In response, many posters and an administrator of the site accused me of: being a closet racist, a homophobe, a supporter of violence against women, and a liar as well as being professionally negligent! Naturally, I was aghast.

What was most inappropriate was that an administrator at theantibogan publicised my email address (which contains my full name) and location. Thus, I had been falsely named on a public website as a person who held these repugnant views.

After several emails which included a promise of legal action from me, the antibogan correctly removed my details and deleted the offensive comments that had been directed towards me. I also received an apology for posting my name and details. What I did not receive was a retraction regarding the imputations that impugned me personally.

Part on an email I received from theantibogan stated:

“Your request (for a retraction) did not come with specific guidelines as to how bold or large the font should be, whether or not it should belong to its own post, highlighted on the homepage surrounded by quirky gif animations or anything of the like.”

I replied to them that this response was both trite and adolescent. The next email that I received from theantibogan is given in full:

I thought this was a funny entry, but I doubt it has anything to do with attracting the bogan audience. If anything, it’s an attempt to try and get the black turtleneck audience to buy more chips. In fact, if anything, I’d say it’s targeted right at the creators of this site!

I agree the bogan loves Superfluous ingredient descriptors, ask a bogan if he or she is aware that their favourite brand of chips contain palm oil grown in an ecologically devastated Borneo or Malaysia and that the consumption of those products is helping to drive the Orangutan to extinction and the response will be something like ” F#*k off ya greeny c*#t i couldn’t give a f*#k now piss of before i smash your f*#*$n head in!!!

I’m not sure that those area’s would be more hospitable to Orangutan’s if they grew Canola instead of Palm oil. You are a bogan for not thinking the bigger issue is the removal of natural habitats for any type of farming.

Its normally Sea Salt rather than rock salt, That’s because the plain old Cheetham salt that’s available cheap in Australia is “sea salt”. But restaurant menu’s are worse.
Menu’s read, ” a tender pattie of minced beef, containing coriander and other herbs, gently pressed together and flame grilled over a gas flame, served with the shoestring potatoes” I want a burger and chips not the friggin recipe.
( and its not just bogan restaurants that do it ).